Saturday, May 07, 2005

I'm beginning to think the lack of commas has been good for my writing. At first it felt awkward--but with the help of parentheses and em dashes I adapted rather quickly. No more long discursive sentences. No more strings of useless adjectives. No more asides. I am now forced to think through exactly what I mean to say in advance. It requires far more discipline.

I always felt that the comma lent a lilting rhythym to sentences. For instance: in that last sentence I viscerally wanted to add a comma at the end and restate what I had just said in a different way. How useless! Who wants to listen to me say the same thing three times? The comma drove me to be show-offy. It caused me to write long indecipherable phrases. Now if I want to add rhythym to my paragraphs I am forced to create more complex and better-built sentences.

I finally understand what a slave I'd become to the comma. It had corrupted my style thoroughly. Nowadays even at work--where I have full comma access--I find myself avoiding the curly little monster. I believe that the comma is the halfway-decent writer's worst enemy. There might even be a Zen parable in there somewhere--something to do with being an acolyte and not knowing how to use a comma. And then becoming fluent and too precious with your commas until finally you reach satori and give up the comma altogether. (Or something. Look-the lack of comma hasn't helped my ability to create metaphors.)

Writing teachers take note: make your students write an entire essay without a comma. It doesn't rival Georges Perec*. But it can be terribly enlightening._____________________________

*I'd have added a link there but the lack of comma also interferes with my html tags. Georges Perec wrote a novel without an E anwywhere in it (the english version is called "A Void.") It's pretty much unreadable--one of those virtuoso performances you can't stand to sit through--but admirable in some insane way. I suspect he wrote it simply because he was a man whose name contained too many e's. I often think about the guy who translated it into English--because the only thing worse than writing a book with no e's in French must be translating it into English. Whatever happened to Gilbert Adair? Ah--let's see:

"He has also written a parody of Pope's The Rape of the Lock, sequels to Alice in Wonderland and Peter Pan and a number of books of non-fiction, including Hollywood's Vietnam (1981) and The Postmodernist Always Rings Twice (1992)."

Call the roller of big cigars,
The muscular one, and bid him whip
In kitchen cups concupiscent curds.
Let the wenches dawdle in such dress
As they are used to wear, and let the boys
Bring flowers in last month's newspapers.
Let be be finale of seem.
The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.

Take from the dresser of deal,
Lacking the three glass knobs, that sheet
On which she embroidered fantails once
And spread it so as to cover her face.
If her horny feet protrude, they come
To show how cold she is, and dumb.
Let the lamp affix its beam.
The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.